Always You
by NeitherPeaches
Summary: AU. Lydia's a recent college graduate and happily in love with her current boyfriend. However, after a visit from her best and greatest friend, the Ghost with the Most, feelings that were long-buried begin to unearth once more. BeetleBabes fluff. Oneshot.


It was a dark and dreary evening; rain bounced off the windowpanes and left transparent droplets of condensation in its wake, and the occasional clap of thunder echoed through the hallways of the Deetz family home. Just behind the little grey door at the end of the upstairs hallway, Lydia sat in a ghostly midnight purple evening gown on the worn-out crimson cushioned stool that had always found itself mingling with her vanity, both of which she had since she was a young teenager. She gingerly and elegantly picked up her brush, running it smoothly through her freshly-showered raven locks, humming something about her being 'over her head but it still feeling nice' and barely acknowledging her own reflection, with the exception of the occasional shy upward glace. Just by looking at her, one could very easily tell that this bewitching creature was a woman in love. And deeply so.

As her brush strokes grew lighter and lighter, becoming more of a blissful sensory experience rather than a fight against tangles, Lydia changed the song she was singing halfway through the second chorus of the first- 'How can I resist you? Does it show again?'. Her mind began to wander. She thought of him and how he made her feel when they first met. She remembered how shy she once was, but how she had somehow been given this gift of confidence, and without it, she wasn't certain how she even would have managed to even mutter a word to him. And now here they were; both in their mid twenties and hopelessly in love- and it was all thanks to...

"BABES!" a familiar, gravely voice shouted from the world beyond the mirror, right on cue.

Lydia jumped and let out a small scream, temporarily forgetting she was still holding her hairbrush and flung it across the room at a vase of long-dead roses that rested atop a small table near the window, hitting its ridge and sending it slowly tipping over. Panicking, Miss Deetz dove off the stool and hit the floor, miraculously managing to catch the vase before it smashed to a million tiny little pieces. Still holding the vase, she growled, "Beetlejuice..."

"Alright! And that's number one!" the prankster poltergeist cheered, "Two more of those B words, Babes, and I can come out to play!"

Propping herself slowly off the ground and returning the vase back to its rightful place by the bay window, Lydia did exactly of what was asked of her: "...Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice..."

"FINALLY! I thought I was gonna have to wait in there for the next eight centuries." the ghost sighed, pushing himself through the portal between the human world and the ghostly Neitherworld, "So! Watcha wanna do this weekend, Lydster? Looks like our plans for Grisleyland got rained out, but hey, we can still do that so-bad-they're-good horror movie marathon we never got around to!"

"I hate to admit it to you BJ, but..."

"Ooh ooh! Or we could always go out hunting cicadas again! I haven't had me one of those guys since four summers ago! MmmmMmmm! They always do hit the spot! Especially when you cover em' with breadcrumbs and fry em'. Oh I'm gonna drool a river all over your floor just thinkin' about them!"

"Please don't. And, as I was saying, Beej, I'm afraid we can't..."

"OH! I KNOW! We could always-"

"Beetlejuice, I'm spending my weekend with _him _again. And I was just so happening to be getting ready for a date with _him_ later tonight when _you_ decided to show up." And there it was. The one word that could make Beetlejuice cringe faster than any other, with the exception of maybe "bath" or "shower": The infamous pronoun, referring to Lydia's current boyfriend. Realizing what she had just said, Lydia covered her mouth with both her hands. "I...I guess the cat's out of bag now, isn't it?"

Beetlejuice, who had shape-shifted into a grouchy black and white-striped cat climbed out of Lydia's purse, which was still lying open on the top of her bedspread, "Clearly." he hissed, as he poofed back into his usual form.

"Oh, come on, Beetlejuice! It's just _one _weekend!" she pleaded with him.

"Yeah, sure. You said that last weekend when you said you couldn't go joyriding together with me and Doomie just because of your silly little date with _him._"

Lydia grumbled, ,"Beetlejuice, _he's _my _boyfriend. _And we've been going on dates virtually every weekend since we confessed. You've known about _him _and our relationshipsince after I graduated college!"

"But BAAAABES! You spend every. single. DAY. with that guy! It's like yer leavin' me to rot!" The ghost pleaded, grabbing aggressively at his shoulder-length blonde hair as his distinct odor filled the room even more than it had when he first arrived.

Lydia covered her nose with one of her hands as she let out a gag, "Beetlejuice, regardless of whether or not I have a boyfriend, you've always been rotting."

"Right. Fair enough." he put his thumb and forefinger to his chin and tried to think of a comeback Lydia couldn't argue: "But _I'm _your best friend.And you've known me longer! I think your greater responsibility is to me!"

"WHAT?! You're being selfish!"

"WHAAAAT? Call it whatcha want, but I'm just tellin' you the truth, Lyds."

Lydia growled in frustration, "Beetlejuice, you may be my best friend, but you certainly drive me off the rails crazy sometimes."

"I know," the ghost remarked pridefully, "Why do you think I have a license to drive people crazy?"

"Well, I can't argue that. Especially since in the Neitherworld that's literally a legitimate thing you can apply for," she mumbled, "Look, Beej, trust me, no matter what happens between my boyfriend and I, you will _always _mean more to me than anybody else in the whole world, and nothing will ever change that. I promise we'll hunt cicadas and watch B movies, and go to Grisleyland together just the two of us when I get back, okay?"

Beetlejuice folded his hands desperately and brought out the puppy dog eyes. He knew Lydia simply couldn't resist the puppy dog eyes, "You pwomise?" he whimpered, making himself sound like a toddler.

Lydia sighed and rolled her eyes, "I 'pwomise'".

Beetlejuice narrowed his eyes playfully, "That didn't sound too convincing, Babes."

Lydia did the same, "What? I said I 'pwomised', didn't I?"

"Yeah, but well, y'know. The way you said it made you sounded as sincere as me whenever I 'promise my neighbors to take a bath'."

Lydia laughed and climbed on top of her bed, "Okay, maybe I _was _a little too unconvincing there."

"A _little_?" He followed her lead and flopped down on his back looking up at her.

"Whatever, BJ." she chuckled, "You're impossible."

"Yeah, but I'm _your _impossible."

"That doesn't even make sense!" she laughed even harder, "'Impossible' isn't a noun!"

"Sure it is! It can be a noun if I say it's a noun!"

"AAAAND that, my dear, is the reason why you failed Kindergarten. Twice."

Beetlejuice tried to think of some witty comeback (most likely involving a pun or visual gag of some sort- the kind that made Lydia break into hysterical laughter), but by the looks of it, he didn't need to- she was already laughing so hard tears were streaming down her face and her signature purple and pink eye shadow was beginning to drip down her ivory cheeks, which were slowly turning red. Just watching her lose it made him begin to snicker himself. Lydia's laughter was as contagious as the plague (but far more pleasant), and pretty soon the Ghost with the Most was cracking himself up to the point where he too though he was banging his fists up and down and laughing even at the creaking noises her mattress made as it took the blows.

After a few minutes of pure, giggly nonsense, Lydia caught her breath, wiped away the final tear from the corner of her eye and flopped down on her back next to her ghoulish best friend, "Oh my gosh..." she panted, "That was... that was great! Oh my gosh..."

Beetlejuice chucked, "Yeah, when was the last time you and me had a good belly laugh together huh?" He then proceeded to use his magic to make his belly actually let out a goofy, deep-voiced laugh.

Lydia began to cackle again, kicking her legs up in the air, "Stop it, Beetlejuice! I can't take it any longer! Seriously!"

"Okay, okay. I'll stop," he snickered and crossed his arms across his chest, "You're no fun."

"Oh am I now?" Lydia playfully mocked, furrowing her brows.

The ghost paused: "Okay, I lied. You're more fun than a barrel of monkeys!" He once again used his magic to place both himself and Lydia into a barrel full of live monkeys, using their fingers and tails to tickle the both of them into hysterical laughter once more before Beetlejuice decided enough was enough and placed them back where they started, lying on their backs, shoulders touching and eyes looking towards the bat-shaped crystal chandelier- the crown jewel of Lydia's ceiling .

"BJ, you're a riot," she giggled with a humongous smile as she brushed her once more tangled hair out of her eyes.

"Really? Cos just a few minutes ago, I thought you said I was impossible." he joked, gently elbowing her side.

Lydia chuckled again, "Yeah well, you're _my _impossible."

Transforming into an almost exact copy of herself, Beetlejuice mocked: "Correct me if I'm wrong, Babes, but you told me that "impossible isn't a noun"!"

She elbowed his own side even harder as he turned back into his normal form, causing his belly to tighten slightly and let out an _oof!, _"OW! Geez, Lyds, I may be a dead guy, but I can still feelstuff y'know!"

Lydia chucked again and muttered out a quick "sorry". Then, silence. Beetlejuice and Lydia locked eyes and remained that way for a solid ten seconds before both of them rapidly re-directing their attention to the chandelier, refusing to look at each other further and both of them feeling their cheeks growing warm. Lydia's heart skipped a beat. Beetlejuice's heart started again for a couple of seconds.

_No. _she thought, _Are you really?... I thought you abandoned that when... You can't still be, right? You're with someone..._

_You can't do this now. _he thought, _You had a short window of time and you let it close, so let it remain closed. What's done is done._

Their thoughts somehow synced with one another's: _But still... It can't be helped..._

Still staring at the ceiling, the both of then respectively thought of their entire history together: the day they first met and became friends, and later best friends. The day she began to feel something more, and the day through tears, she admitted that to him, and the day they dismissed what happened as being nothing more than one-sided yearning. The day when she grew older, and the day she first experienced a different kind of heartbreak, and the day he returned her feelings that had been long buried with her childhood. The day he tried to rekindle those feelings by making an agreement that she regarded as nothing more than shallow words, and the day she fell in love again, with someone other than himself. Beetlejuice slowly, agonizingly lifted his hand off the blanket and moved it closer and closer to her own, desperately desiring to hold it. But as Lydia's hand beckoned him as it rested so close, it still seemed like it was still so far.

"B-Beetlejuice, I..."

His eyes widened. __

She bit her lip: "I... I have to go..."

His heart sank. Hers did too.

"Oh. Right." was all he could say.

Lydia moved her legs to the floor and stood up, "I've gotta go freshen up- I don't think _he'd _appreciate me walking into a five-star restaurant looking like a drowned rat, no matter how nice of a dress I've put on. She slipped her feet into the pair of black and white-striped heels, quickly de-tangled her now dry hair and touched up her makeup from when she had laugh-cried most of it off into her comforter before slipping out of her bedroom door.

"Goodbye, Beetlejuice," she almost sang, "Thanks for coming to visit me tonight... I'll uh... See you later."

"See ya, Babes..."

She looked back at him with eyes that clearly revealed her longing, before she sighed and descended the staircase.

Nearly three hours had passed when Beetlejuice realized that he still was lying face-up on Lydia's bed, mindlessly staring at the ceiling and listening to the pendulum of the gothic grandfather clock swish back and forth. Since he pretty much bled himself dry of all the thoughts that were swimming impatiently like over-grown piranhas in a tiny glass fishbowl in his head, he had practically nothing left in his mind to keep him occupied and combat how indescribably lonely and quite frankly, stupid he felt.

"Let's face it..." he mumbled, eyes still locked on the chandelier as he allowed himself to melt into a pile of mushy, black and white goo, "I'm all washed up."

But just as Beetlejuice was starting to wonder how in the world he was going to get back home after Lydia practically trapped him in her house for the next forty-eight hours, he heard a nearby car door slam and footsteps click along the pavement of a driveway. After propping himself up off the bed and making the way across the room feeling like his efforts would be pointless, he regardless pushed the long purple curtains away from the window and looked out of it. He could barely believe his eyes: it was Lydia.

"What in the heck is she doing here?" he grumbled to himself, "I thought she was spending the entire weekend with..." he paused. Something wasn't right.

_Oh no. _he thought, _He'd better not have..._

But before he could even finish his thought, Lydia violently swung open the door to her bedroom, kicked off her heels, and took a seat on her bed, cradling her head in her hands.

"Babes!" Beetlejuice smiled, "Nice to see you home so soon! How'd your date with you-know-who go?"

Lydia didn't even as much as look up at Beetlejuice. Instead, she just brought her head closer to her knees and started sobbing.

Beetlejuice's heart sank. If her coming home earlier than expected didn't reveal it already, the fact that she didn't even look at him or respond to his question proved that his original fear was true: _he _did something to her, and by the looks of it, something very, very horrible.

He softened his voice: "Hey, Babes, kiddo, are you okay?"

"It's over..." She whispered in between sobs.

He climbed onto the bed with her and sat directly at her side, "What happened?" he gently asked. Lydia couldn't even bear to answer, all she did was sob even harder into her dress.

Beetlejuice sighed, "Don't wanna talk, eh? I get that. You don't haveta spill yer guts if-" He interrupted himself and took a better look at her. She was miserable. Beyond miserable. He had never seen her this miserable since the day they first met when she was no more than twelve or thirteen. If there was anything that made him more upset, it was seeing her upset. Throughout their friendship, it had been his job to make Lydia laugh and smile and keep her happy. Watching her sob profusely, especially in his presence, made him feel like he failed her, even though it wasn't his fault. He sighed. "C'mere... Just... Come here..." was all he could say before he too felt like he would break out into sobs.

Lydia, without hesitation, obeyed his request. She threw her arms around him, dug her hands into the fabric of his signature suit jacket and buried her face into his chest, allowing herself to let out everything she had been feeling in broken sentences and waterfalls of tears. All Beetlejuice could do was allow himself to cry too, and to return the embrace she had given him. The two of them remained that way for hours, until the river was dry and the both of them were left with almost no emotion, cathartic and exhausted. After a prolonged period of sleepy silence, Lydia whispered in the middle of half-sleep:

"Beetlejuice?"

"Y-yeah?" he rolled over and his own tired eyes met hers.

Lydia slowly picked her head off of the blanket beneath her, placed her weak hands on his face, brought her forehead to his, and allowed their lips to meet gently, tenderly, lovingly. After releasing she whispered: "I love you..."

Beetlejuice was shell shocked. He thought he would wind up saying "I love you" back, as he had fought off saying it for hours, let alone during the entire five or six years during Lydia's seemingly-thriving relationship with her now ex boyfriend. Instead, he blurted out nonsense talk and eventually composed himself to say something to the effect of: "B-but Lydia, I thought-" without even considering his own feelings.

Lydia sighed and shook her head as best as she could with a pillow underneath of it. It was almost like she knew exactly what he was going to say even without him finishing: "No, BJ. It was _always _you."

He looked at her with a hint of confusion in his eyes and tried to finish the rest of his sentence. She interrupted him again.

"Beetlejuice, remember when I said that you're the one who means more to me than anybody else in the world, no matter what?"

He smiled, "I think I recall."

She smiled back, "Well... I meant it. No matter how much I thought I loved _him_, ultimately, you meant more to me than even he did. Sure, it's true that he made me happy, but in turn, I began to feel more and more miserable at the thought of losing you. The more I hung out with him, the more I missed you, and felt foolish that I was regarding you as so much less than what you actually are to me."

"Lydia... Are you saying-"

She looked at him with soft eyes, "Yes. _I _was the one to end our relationship. _He _didn't do anything to me."

He gasped, "B-Babes w-what?! Then if you- Why were...?"

She sighed, "To be honest with you, BJ, I don't know why I was crying. It was true I loved _him_, but in the long run, it was, like I said, always you I wanted to be happy. And I wanted to be happy too- even happier than I was; a happiness without emptiness. And from years of knowing you, I knew in my heart that in order to make us both happy, we needed to be together."

Beetlejuice's eyes widened so big they could have popped out of his head (not that it wasn't an abnormal occurrence for his eyes to do the latter anyway), "Lyds... I'm gonna be completely and totally honest with you,which is something I don't do very often, so pay close attention to this because it might never happen again... Out of the entire thirty years of living in this world and five-hundred years of my afterlife, not a single soul, living or dead, has _ever _done _anything _like this for me. _Ever. _You- You really weren't kiddin' when you said you loved me..."

Lydia smiled and blinked back a tear, "I meant ever word of what I said. I hoped that cleared things up if the kiss I gave you ten minutes ago didn't prove already."

Beetlejuice broke his sentimental mood and raised his eyebrows and shot her a playful smirk, "Hum... You're right. That kiss _didn't _prove anything..."

Lydia immediately knew what he was getting at: "Now that you mention it, I think you might be right, my love. Let me try that again so I can prove to you how serious I am..."

The twosome inched closer together and allowed their lips to collide a second time, ending it again with Lydia's "I love you", but this time Beetlejuice reciprocating it with "I love you too." They both smiled, lost in the other's eyes.

For Lydia, it felt so good to feel _truly _happy. For Beetlejuice, it felt so good to finally to be loved.


End file.
